Pursuit Force - PSP - Preview 2

The well-armed
terrorists manage to load the explosive missile heads into six trucks and they
quickly get in and drive to their destination where they will threat to detonate
them in the middle of the city’s busy shopping districts. Yet as they drive
erratically down the highway, a sleek sports car zigzags its way toward them
with sirens wailing. The driver manages to get close enough to fire some shots
into one truck but it will take more than that to stop it so the cop behind the
wheel jumps out of his car and on to the truck where he blasts away at the
driver to take control of the first truck. With five more trucks to stop, the
cop steps on the gas. If you think this is a scene from a Michael Bay action
movie, you’re wrong. This is Pursuit Force, an action-packed PSP game
with fast-paced driving and shooting action.

You play a
rookie Capital City police officer who just so happens to be a member of a
special police unit known as Pursuit Force. Pursuit Force was formed for one
specific reason: to track down and put away members of five criminal gang
elements that terrorize the city and the civilian population. Whether you’re up
against the Warlords (elite mercenaries), the Capellis (the state’s mafia
organization), the Killer 66 (a Far Eastern gang), the Convicts (a gang of
escaped prisoners) or the Vixens (a high-tech gang of female thieves), Pursuit
Force is there to put a stop to them.

Luckily, though,
you’ll have 10 different weapons to aid you in Pursuit Force’s quest to bring
these criminals down as well as access to 55 different types of vehicles to
commandeer. The game at launch will feature 30 cases (or levels) set in five
different districts of Capital City but the demo we got to play featured three
cases that offered a taste of the driving and shooting action as well as an
introduction to the criminal scum you’ll be up against as well as the varying
difficulty settings.

The first case,
entitled Toxic Convoy, has you going up against the Warlords. While the case is
set at the easiest difficulty setting, the situation is not a simple one at all.
Here, the nameless cop you play chases down the militant Warlords that have
stolen barrels of toxic nerve agent from the Ronada Airforce Base. They’re
heading for Corsair Bay where they plan to hold the town for ransom but not if
you have anything to say about it. In hot pursuit, you zip through the freeway
traffic, careful not to hit oncoming traffic (I’ll tell you why in a minute)
while attempting to stop the trucks from reaching their destination. There’s a
map on the lower left-hand corner of the screen that pinpoints their exact
location and how far they are to their destination so time is of the essence
here.

The bad news,
though, is that the Warlords have back up and they aren’t afraid to use it. The
good news is that there’s a way to stop the trucks without destroying them and
unleashing its deadly cargo. Your cop can jump out of his vehicle and jump on to
the nearby vehicle driven by the enemy. You’ll get a heads up when you can jump
on the enemy and jumping is simply a press of the O button. Once you’re on the
enemy’s vehicle, you’ll have to deal with the passenger who will try to shoot
you. You can duck or move to the side in order to avoid a face full of buckshot.
After eliminating the passenger, you’re free to put a bullet into the head of
the driver and thus be able to drive the vehicle. You will have to stop each
truck before it reaches the destination.

The second case
is titled Cold Contract and it has you going up against the Capelli Family. It
seems that Don Capelli has sent his squad of hitmen downriver on speedboats to
assassinate the delegates of the state security conference in Asten Town. You
climb onboard the Super Pursuit Boat as you attempt to bring each boat down
anyway you can. Again you can jump on to the enemy’s vehicle much like in the
Toxic Convoy case only now it's on speed boats and the Capelli hit squad are
great shots.

Finally, there’s
a case called Wilde’s Boys, a case that has you going up against the wild and
unpredictable Convict gang. This is the game’s only case that plays at a medium
setting and it’s also one of the most difficult cases in the demo. Here you’re
back behind the wheel of your flashy sports car again but the enemy is still
faster and the vehicles are packed with more dangerous passengers armed with
everything from shotguns to nail guns.

How does the
game control, you might ask? Thanks to a smooth framerate, the driving controls
feel right at home on the PSP. You accelerate with the X button while you aim
with the Left trigger and fire with the Right one. You can even perform a power
slide by tapping the Square button and pressing the X. Each car, of course,
drives differently so expect sports car to burn rubber while trucks and other
sturdy vehicles (the game promises buses and SUVs). Even the speed boats feel
like, well, speed boats. In addition, while the targeting still needs to be
tweaked a little, the game’s shooting sequences work well within a situation.

Each good action
(stopping a bad guy’s vehicle) boosts your Justice Bar meter, a meter that, when
filled, unleashes a special ability that slows down time during vehicle jumping,
causes more damage and restores your health meter. You’ll even earn speed bursts
when you need it most. Of course, you can also diminish the meter by crashing
into civilians or causing accidents. The game also grades you at the end of each
level, a feature that means you’ll get to unlock extras (a Time Trial and Race
mode perhaps?) if you earn a high grade.

While the demo
doesn’t give us a peek into the game’s other case types (among them the ability
to battle it out on-foot or operating a mini-gun aboard a helicopter),
Pursuit Force already feels like a true action fan’s dream come true. With
everything from brutal car chases to high-flying car hopping that would put Mel
Gibson’s Lethal Weapon character to shame. The game also looks great with plenty
of environmental detail as well as explosive effects. Yet what steals the show
is Pursuit Force’s nod to Hollywood action movies. Expect the Captain to
bark his orders, the Capelli family to sound like classic movie goombas and the
ladies (both good and bad) to look unsurprisingly hot. Then again, fans of the
action film (as well as gaming genre) wouldn’t have it any other way.